Michael Jordan won 6 NBA championships during his career, but he never won one without Phil Jackson as his head coach. Jackson is the most successful coach in NBA history, having won 11 championships in 20 seasons at the helm with the Bulls and the Lakers. He has his share of critics, who point to the fact that he only won titles because he had Jordan and then later Kobe Bryant, but conversely, they never won anything when he wasn’t their coach.
Regardless of what you think of Jackson’s coaching acumen and where he should rank among the great coaches, both Jordan and Kobe knew that he gave them the best chance at winning. He won like no one else did, and we are pretty confident no one is ever going to surpass him in championships.
Phil Jackson Revealed His Favorite Michael Jordan Moment
Jackson had a lot of great moments during his career, as you would expect for someone who won so much. He was asked during an interview in 2014 about what was his favorite Jordan moment, and Jackson pointed to Game 6 against the Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals.
(starts at 3:20 mark):
“I think the moment that means a lot to me was the last game that we were on the floor together against Utah. He was missing his shot and he was letting his hand go a little bit and I just said ‘You know you gotta follow through on the shot’ and then I said ‘Listen we’ve got 30 some seconds 9 seconds, there’s a timeout, they’re not going to call a timeout. We’re down by 3, this is what we’re going to run, when you score when they come back, they’re going to go to Karl. You can come back and strip him in this situation. You know the play, you know what they’re going to do, they’re going to cross pick and Hornacek’s gonna set it and see if you can get the ball out of his hands.’ and he did it. It was a great steal and he went down scored on the same play, but this time he took a jump shot and that sequence was the culmination of young minds that were working together.”
That was one of the most iconic moments in NBA history, which secured a second three-peat in the 1990s for Jordan and the Bulls. It is a shame that the dynasty ended with that shot, too, as Jackson, Jordan, and Scottie Pippen would all leave the team after that.
While Jackson was full of praise for Jordan for the way that game ended, it is easy to see that he wanted to get the point across that all of it happened because he told MJ to do it. Classic Phil right there to make it about himself. Jackson also once spoke about how leadership was the biggest difference between MJ and Kobe, as he stated that Michael was masterful at controlling the emotional climate of the team, something Jackson himself was pretty good at.
